CHAPTER L

Esther’s Narrative

It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy

Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her

health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and

that she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to

see her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on

which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in

which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now

the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby—such a

tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely

anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand,

always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all

day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to

imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved

it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole

desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had

curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks

under its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy’s inky days, and

altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous

little sight.

But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects

with which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther’s education,

and little Esther’s marriage, and even for her own old age as the

grandmother of little Esther’s little Esthers, was so prettily

expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be

tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I

am getting on irregularly as it is.

To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had

been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when

she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost—I think I

must say quite—believed that I did her good whenever I was near her.

Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl’s that I

am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of

a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my

guardian’s consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me

that there never was anything like it.

Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It

was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in

the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters

before leaving home.

But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my

return at night, “Now, little woman, little woman, this will never

do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching

will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and

take possession of our old lodgings.”

“Not for me, dear guardian,” said I, “for I never feel tired,” which

was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.

“For me then,” returned my guardian, “or for Ada, or for both of us.

It is somebody’s birthday to-morrow, I think.”

“Truly I think it is,” said I, kissing my darling, who would be

twenty-one to-morrow.

“Well,” observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously,

“that’s a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary

business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make

London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will

go. That being settled, there is another thing—how have you left

Caddy?”

“Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she

regains her health and strength.”

“What do you call some time, now?” asked my guardian thoughtfully.

“Some weeks, I am afraid.”

“Ah!” He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets,

showing that he had been thinking as much. “Now, what do you say

about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?”

I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but

that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his

opinion to be confirmed by some one.

“Well, you know,” returned my guardian quickly, “there’s Woodcourt.”

I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment

all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed

to come back and confuse me.

“You don’t object to him, little woman?”

“Object to him, guardian? Oh no!”

“And you don’t think the patient would object to him?”

So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a

great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was

no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind

attendance on Miss Flite.

“Very good,” said my guardian. “He has been here to-day, my dear, and

I will see him about it to-morrow.”

I felt in this short conversation—though I did not know how, for she

was quiet, and we interchanged no look—that my dear girl well

remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no

other hands than Caddy’s had brought me the little parting token.

This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that

I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided

that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes

of its master’s love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited

listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be

the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to

take her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before

myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life

that was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at

one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest

of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted

by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle

reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before.

I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that

it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better.

Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in

half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone

away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling’s birthday,

and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us

that Richard’s absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that

day I was for some weeks—eight or nine as I remember—very much with

Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than

any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own

illness. She often came to Caddy’s, but our function there was to

amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential

manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy’s

rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her.

With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their

home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying,

so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid

of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her

husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the

best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face

and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing

was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began

early every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy

waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.

At Caddy’s request I took the supreme direction of her apartment,

trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more

airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every

day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small

namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It

was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about

Bleak House.

We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in

his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit

softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very

little child. Whatever Caddy’s condition really was, she never failed

to declare to Prince that she was all but well—which I, heaven

forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such

good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and

play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do

in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.

Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her

usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her

grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan

on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as

untidy, she would say, “Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do

to-day?” And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of

the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number

of letters she had lately received and answered or of the

coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do

with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be

disguised.

Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and

from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the

baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him

uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was

surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy

required any little comfort that the house contained, she first

carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In

return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day,

all but blessing it—showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a

grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered

presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known

better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy’s life.

“My Caroline,” he would say, making the nearest approach that he

could to bending over her. “Tell me that you are better to-day.”

“Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,” Caddy would reply.

“Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite

prostrated by fatigue?” Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss

his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be

particular in his attentions since I had been so altered.

“Not at all,” I would assure him.

“Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We

must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My

dear Caroline”—he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite

generosity and protection—“want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish

and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains,

everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not,” he

would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, “even allow my simple

requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere

with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine.”

He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment

(his son’s inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew

both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these

affectionate self-sacrifices.

“Nay, my dears,” he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy’s thin

arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though

not by the same process. “Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave

ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other

return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.”

He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his

hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never

saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except

that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the

child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending

him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a

halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended

with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was

sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of

deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and

her husband, from top to toe.

Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to

come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was,

and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt

to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling

about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as

if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got

any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the

wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite

divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.

I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was

now Caddy’s regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his

care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he

took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal

of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be

supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped

home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met,

notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still

felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry

for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional

engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects

for the future.

It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in

my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me,

because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing

in themselves and only became something when they were pieced

together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was

not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for

me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that;

but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to

me, and in which I traced some hidden regret.

Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the

happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me

thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this

something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my

head that she was a little grieved—for me—by what I had told her

about Bleak House.

How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don’t know. I had no

idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not

grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still,

that Ada might be thinking—for me, though I had abandoned all such

thoughts—of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy

to believe that I believed it.

What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show

her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and

busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as

Caddy’s illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home

duties—though I had always been there in the morning to make my

guardian’s breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said

there must be two little women, for his little woman was never

missing—I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about

the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working

in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and

night.

And still there was the same shade between me and my darling.

“So, Dame Trot,” observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night

when we were all three together, “so Woodcourt has restored Caddy

Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?”

“Yes,” I said; “and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be

made rich, guardian.”

“I wish it was,” he returned, “with all my heart.”

So did I too, for that matter. I said so.

“Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we

not, little woman?”

I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for

it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be

many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and

many others.

“True,” said my guardian. “I had forgotten that. But we would agree

to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with

tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and

his own household gods—and household goddess, too, perhaps?”

That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.

“To be sure,” said my guardian. “All of us. I have a great regard for

Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him

delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an

independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And

yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems

half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such

a man away.”

“It might open a new world to him,” said I.

“So it might, little woman,” my guardian assented. “I doubt if he

expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he

sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune

encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?”

I shook my head.

“Humph,” said my guardian. “I am mistaken, I dare say.” As there was

a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl’s

satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked

which was a favourite with my guardian.

“And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?” I asked

him when I had hummed it quietly all through.

“I don’t quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was

likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country.”

“I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him

wherever he goes,” said I; “and though they are not riches, he will

never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least.”

“Never, little woman,” he replied.

I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian’s

chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was

now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she

looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears

were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and

merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at

rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.

So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder—how little thinking

what was heavy on her mind!—and I said she was not quite well, and

put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own

room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so

unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I

never thought she stood in need of it.

“Oh, my dear good Esther,” said Ada, “if I could only make up my mind

to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!”

“Why, my love!” I remonstrated. “Ada, why should you not speak to

us!”

Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.

“You surely don’t forget, my beauty,” said I, smiling, “what quiet,

old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the

discreetest of dames? You don’t forget how happily and peacefully my

life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you

don’t forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.”

“No, never, Esther.”

“Why then, my dear,” said I, “there can be nothing amiss—and why

should you not speak to us?”

“Nothing amiss, Esther?” returned Ada. “Oh, when I think of all these

years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old

relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!”

I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to

answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many

little recollections of our life together and prevented her from

saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned

to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat

near her for a little while.

She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a

little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not

decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was

changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked

different to me. My guardian’s old hopes of her and Richard arose

sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, “She has been anxious

about him,” and I wondered how that love would end.

When I had come home from Caddy’s while she was ill, I had often

found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had

never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,

which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still

rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing

for herself.

And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under

her pillow so that it was hidden.

How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much

less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own

cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me

to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!

But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next

day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my

darling.